Human and Cosmic Thought:Lecture IV

Schmidt Number: S-2884

On-line since: 12th June, 2004

LECTURE FOUR

WE HAVE been concerned with the possible varieties of world-outlooks,
of world-outlook-moods and so on, which can find place in the human
soul, and, since I can take only single points of view from this wide
field, I should like to illustrate one of these points of view by
means of a special example.

Let us suppose that a person so lives in the world that among his
natural predispositions we find the special forces through which he
is influenced by the world-outlook of Idealism. We will say that he
makes this world-outlook into a dominating factor in his inner life,
so that the soul-mood which I designated yesterday as Mysticism, and
called the Venus mood, flows towards Idealism and is nourished by its
powers. Hence, if one speaks in the symbols of astrology, one would
say that the spiritual constellation of such a man, according to his
natural predispositions, is that Venus stands in Aries.

I remark expressly, so that no misunderstanding may arise, that these
constellations are of much greater importance in the life of the
person than the constellations of the external horoscope, and do not
necessarily coincide with the “nativity” — the
external horoscope. For the enhanced influence which is exerted on
the soul by this standing of Mysticism in the sign of Idealism waits
for the propitious moment when it can lay hold of the soul most
fruitfully. Such influences need not assert themselves just at the
time of birth; they can do so before birth, or after it. In short,
they await the point of time when these predispositions can best be
built into the human organism, according to its inner configuration.

Hence the ordinary astrological “nativity” does not come
into account here. But one can say: A certain soul is by nature such
that, spiritually speaking, Venus stands in Aries — Mysticism
in the sign of Idealism. Now the forces which arise in this way do
not remain constant throughout life. They change — that is, the
person comes under other influences, under other spiritual signs and
also under other moods of soul. Let us suppose that a man so changes
that in the course of his life he comes into the soul-mood of
Empiricism; that Mysticism has moved on, as it were, into Empiricism,
and Empiricism stands in the sign of Rationalism. You see, as I drew
it in the preceding lecture, going from inwards outwards in the
symbolic picture, that Empiricism stands in relation to Mysticism as
does the Sun to Venus. With regard to its mood the soul has
progressed to Empiricism and has at the same time placed itself in
the sign of Rationalism. The result is that such a soul changes its
world-picture. What the soul formerly produced, perhaps as a
specially strong personality in the time when in its case Mysticism
stood in the sign of Idealism, this will pass over into another
nuance of world-outlook. What the soul asserts and says will be
different when in this way its world-outlook-mood has passed over
from Mysticism to Empiricism, and the latter has placed itself in the
sign of Rationalism. However, from what I have now explained, you can
gather that human souls can have an inclination to change the sign
and mood of their world-outlook.
(See Diagram 11.)
For these souls the
tendency to change is already given. Let us suppose that such a soul
wants to carry this tendency further in life. It wants to swing
forward from Empiricism to the next soul-mood, i.e. to Voluntarism;
and if it wants to swing forward also in the zodiacal signs, then it
will come into Mathematism. It would then pass over to a
world-outlook which in this symbolical picture leads away at an angle
of 60 degrees from the first line, where Mysticism stood in the sign
of Idealism; and such a soul, in the course of the same incarnation,
would bring to expression a mathematical world-structure permeated by
and based upon the will.

And now I ask you to notice how I work out this matter. It will be
seen that two such constellations as are here present in the soul
disturb each other in the course of time; they influence each other
unfavourably when they are at an angle of 60 degrees with regard to
each other. In physical astrology this a favourable constellation; in
spiritual astrology this so-called sextile aspect is unfavourable. We
can see this because this last position — Voluntarism in
Mathematism — comes up against a severe hindrance in the soul.
The soul is not able to develop, because it cannot find anything to
lay hold of, since the person in question has no natural gift for
Mathematism.

This is how the unfavourable character of the sextile aspect
expresses itself. Hence this configuration, Voluntarism in the sign
of Mathematism, cannot establish itself. The consequence is that the
soul does not try to move forward in this way. But because it cannot
take the path to Voluntarism in Mathematism, it turns away from the
configuration it now has — Empiricism in Rationalism —
and seeks an outlet by placing itself in opposition to the direction
it cannot take. Such a soul, accordingly, would not swing forward to
Voluntarism in the direction of Mathematism, but would place itself
with Voluntarism in opposition to its Empiricism. The result is that
Voluntarism would stand in opposition to Rationalism in the sign of
Dynamism. And in the course of its life, such a soul would have as
its possible configuration one in which it would defend a
world-outlook based on a special pressing in of forces, of Dynamism
permeated by will — a will that wants to effect its purpose by
force. In spiritual astrology things are again different from what
they are in physical astrology; in physical astrology “opposition”
has a quite different significance. Here, “opposition” is
brought about by the soul being unable to proceed further along an
unfavourable path; it veers round into the opposing configuration.

I have shown you here what the soul of Nietzsche went through in the
course of his life. If you try to understand the course he takes in
his early works, you will find that the placing of Mysticism makes it
comprehensible. From this period we have “The Birth of
Tragedy”; “David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer”;
“The Use and Abuse of History”; “Schopenhauer as
Educator”; “Richard Wagner in Bayreuth”. Then the
soul of Nietzsche moves on; a second epoch begins. Here we find
“Human, all too Human”; “The Dawn of Day”;
“The Joyful Wisdom” — all proceeding from the
oppositional configuration. These are writings based on the will to
power, on the will saturated with force, with power.

Thus you see how an inner conformity to law exists between the
spiritual cosmos and the way in which man stands within it. If we
employ the symbols of astrology, but taking them to express something
different, we can say: In the case of Nietzsche, up to a certain time
in his life Venus stood in Aries, but when for his soul this
configuration passed over into “Sun in the sign of Taurus”,
he could get no further. He could not go with Mars into the sign of
Gemini, but went in the oppositional position; thus he went with Mars
into the sign of Scorpio. His last phase was characterized by his
standing with Mars in Scorpio. But one can sustain this configuration
only if one penetrates into the lower position (below the line
Idealism — Realism in
Diagram 11)
where one plunges
into a spiritual world-outlook, Occultism or something similar;
otherwise these configurations must work back unfavourably upon the
person himself. Hence the tragic fate of Nietzsche. One can go
through with the upper configurations if one is able, owing to
external circumstances, to place oneself in the world in a
corresponding way. The configurations below the line from Idealism to
Realism can be sustained only if one dives down into the spiritual
world — a thing that Nietzsche could not do. By “placing
oneself externally in the world” I mean placing by means of
education, by means of external conditions; they come into account
for all that lies above the line running from Idealism to Realism.
Meditative life, a life devoted to the study and understanding of
Spiritual Science, comes into account for all that lies below the
line.

In order to grasp the importance of what has been sketched out in
these lectures, we must know the following things. We must make it
clear to ourselves what thinking really is; how it enters into human
experience.

The uncompromising materialist of our day finds it suits his purpose
to say that the brain forms the thought — more exactly, that
the central nervous system forms the thought. For anyone who sees
through things, this is about as true as to say when one looks into a
mirror that the mirror has “made” the face. In fact, the
face is outside the mirror; the mirror only reflects the face, throws
it back. The experience a man has of his thoughts is quite similar.
(We will leave aside for the moment other aspects of the soul.) The
experience of real, active thinking no more arises from the brain
than the image of a face is created by the mirror. The brain, in
fact, works only as a reflecting apparatus, whereby it throws back
the soul-activity and this becomes visible to itself. The brain has
as little to do with what a man perceives as thoughts as a mirror has
to do with your face when you see it in a glass. But there is
something more than that. When someone thinks, he really perceives
only the last phases of his thinking-activity, of his thinking
experience. And now, in order to make this clear, I want to take up
once more the comparison with the mirror.

Imagine that you are standing there and want to see your face in a
mirror. If you have no mirror, then you cannot see your face. You may
look as long as you like, but you will not see your face. If you want
to see it, you must work up some material so that is reflects your
face. That is, you must first prepare the material so that it can
produce the reflection. Then, when you gaze at the surface, you see
your face. The soul has to do the same with the brain. The actual
perceiving of a thought is preceded by a thinking activity that works
upon the brain. For example, if you want to perceive the thought
“lion”, your thinking activity first sets in motion
certain parts of the brain, deep within it, so that they become the
“mirror” for the perception of the thought “lion”.
And the agent who thus makes the brain into a mirror is you yourself.
What you finally perceive as thoughts are the reflections, the
mirror-pictures; what you first have to prepare so that the right
reflection may appear is some part or other of the brain. You, with
your soul-activity, are the very thing that gives the brain the form
and capacity for reflecting your thinking as thoughts. If you want to
go back to the activity on which the thought is based, then it is the
activity which, from out of the soul, takes hold of the brain and
gets to work there. And when from out of your soul you set up a
certain activity in your brain, this brings about a reflection such
that you perceive the thought “lion”. You see, a
soul-spiritual element has to be there first. Then, through its
activity, the brain is made into a mirror-like apparatus for
reflecting the thought. That is the real process, but such a muddled
idea of it prevails that many people nowadays cannot grasp it at all.

A person who makes a little progress in occult perception can
separate the two phases of his soul-activity. He can trace how it is
that when he wants to think something or other, he has first not
simply to grasp the thought, but to prepare his brain for it. If he
has prepared it so that it reflects, then he has the thought. When
one wants to investigate occultly, so that one can picture things,
one always has, first, the task of carrying through the activity
which prepares the picturing. It is this that is so important for us
to notice. For it is only when we keep these things well in mind that
we have before us the real activity of human thinking. Now for the
first time we know how human thinking-activity is carried out. First,
this activity lays hold of the brain, in connection somewhere with
the central nervous system. It sets in motion — let us say if
we wish — the atomistic portions in some way, brings them into
some sort of movement; by this means they become a mirror-apparatus;
the thought is reflected, and the soul becomes conscious of the
thought. Thus we have to distinguish two phases: first the work on
the brain from out of the psychic-spiritual in preparation for the
external physical experience; then the perception takes place, after
the work on the brain has prepared the ground for this act of
perceiving by the soul. In the ordinary way this preparatory work on
the brain remains entirely unconscious. But an occult researcher must
start by actually experiencing it. He has to go through the
experience of how the soul-activity is poured in, and the brain made
ready to reflect the thought as an image.

What I have now explained happens continually to a person between
waking up and going to sleep. The thinking activity is always working
on the brain, and so, throughout the waking state, it makes the brain
into a mirror-apparatus for the thoughts. But it is not sufficient
that the only thinking-activity worked up in us should be that worked
up by ourselves. For one might say it is a narrowly limited activity
that is here worked up in this way by means of the psychic-spiritual.
When we wake up in the morning and are awake through the day, and in
the evening fall asleep again, then the psychic-spiritual activity
which belongs to the thinking is working all day long upon the brain,
and thereby the brain becomes a reflecting-apparatus. But the brain
must first be there; then, the soul-spiritual activity can make
little furrows in the brain, or, one might say, its memoranda and
engravings. The main substance and form of the brain must first be
there. But that is not enough for our human life.

Our brain could not be worked upon by our daily life if our whole
organism were not so prepared that it provides a basis for this daily
work. And this work of preparation comes from the cosmos. Thus as we
work daily at the “engraving” of the brain, which makes
it into a mirror-apparatus for our daily thought, so, in so far as we
cannot ourselves do this engraving, this giving form, form has to be
given to us from the cosmos. As our little thoughts work and make
their little engravings, so must our whole organism be built up from
out of the cosmos, according to the same pattern of thought-activity.
For example, that which appears to us finally in the sign of Idealism
is present in the spiritual cosmos as the activity producing
Idealism, and it can so work upon a man that it prepares his whole
organism so that he inclines to Idealism. In like manner are the
other varieties of moods and signs worked in upon men from out of the
spiritual cosmos.

Man is built up according to the thoughts of the cosmos. The cosmos
is the “great thinker” which down to our last finger-nail
engraves our form in us, just as our little thought-work makes its
little imprints on our brain every day. As our brain — I am
referring only to the small portions where imprints can be made —
stands under the influence of the work of thinking, so does the whole
man stand under the influence of cosmic thinking.

Take the example I gave you, the example of Nietzsche — what
does it mean? It means that through an earlier incarnation Nietzsche
was so prepared in his karma that at a certain point of time, by
virtue of his earlier incarnation, the forces of Idealism and of
Mysticism (working together because Mysticism stood in the sign of
Idealism) so worked upon his whole bodily constitution that he was in
the first place capable of becoming a mystical Idealist. Then his
constellation altered in the way indicated.

We are thought out from the cosmos — the cosmos thinks us. And
just as we, in our little daily thought-work, make little engravings
in our brain, and then the ideas “lion”, “dog”,
“table”, “rose”, “book”, “on”,
“right”, “left”, come into our consciousness
as reflections of that which we have prepared in our brain —
i.e. just as we, through the working-up of the brain, finally
perceive, lion, dog, table, rose, book, on, off, right, write, read —
the Beings of the cosmic Hierarchies work in such a way that they
carry out the great thought-activity which engraves upon the world
things far more significant than our daily thought-activity can
accomplish. So it comes to pass that not only the tiny little
markings arise and are then reflected singly as our thoughts, but
that we ourselves, in our whole being, appear again to the Beings of
the higher Hierarchies as their thoughts. As our little
brain-processes mirror our little thoughts, so do we mirror the
thoughts of the cosmos which are engraved upon the world. When the
Hierarchies of the cosmos “think”, they “think”,
for example, men. As our little thoughts emerge from our little
brain-processes, so do the thoughts of the Hierarchies arise from
their work, to which we ourselves belong. As parts of our brain are
for us the reflecting-apparatus which we first work up for our
thoughts, so are we, we little beings, the substance which the
Hierarchies of the cosmos prepare for their thoughts. Thus we might
say, in a certain sense, that we can feel ourselves with regard to
the cosmos as a little portion of our brain might feel with regard to
ourselves. But as little as we, in our soul-spiritual nature, are our
brains, so little are the Beings of the Hierarchies “we”.
Hence we have an independent status in relation to the Beings of the
higher Hierarchies. And we can say that while in a certain manner we
serve them so that they may be able to think through us, yet at the
same time we are independent beings with identities of our own, as
indeed, in a certain way, the particles of our brain have their own
life.

Thus we find the connection between human and cosmic thoughts. Human
thought is the regent of the brain; cosmic thought is such a regent
that we belong with our whole being to that which it has to
accomplish. Only, because in consequence of our karma it cannot
direct its thoughts on to us all equally, we have to be constituted
in accordance with its logic. Thus we men have a logic according to
which we think, and so have the Spiritual Hierarchies of the cosmos
their logic. And their logic was indicated in the diagram I drew for
you (see lecture three,
Diagram 11).
As when we think, for example, “The
lion is a mammal”, we bring two concepts together to make a
statement, so the Spiritual Hierarchies of the cosmos think two
things together, Mysticism and Idealism, and we then say: “Mysticism
appears in Idealism.” Imagine this first as the preparatory
activity of the cosmos. Then resounds the Creative Fiat, the Creative
Word. For the Beings of the Spiritual Hierarchies the preparatory act
consists in the choice of a human being whose karma is such that he
can develop a natural bent for becoming a mystical Idealist. Into the
Hierarchies of the cosmos there is rayed back something that we
should call a “thought”, whereas for them it is the
expression of a man who is a mystical Idealist. He is their
“thought”, after they have prepared for themselves the
cosmic decision — ”Let Mysticism appear in Idealism.”

We have now, in a certain sense, depicted the inner aspect of the
Cosmic Word, of Cosmic Thought. What we drew in a diagram as “cosmic
logic” represents how the Spiritual Hierarchies of the cosmos
think. For example: “Let Empiricism appear in the sign of
Rationalism!” and so on. Let us try to realize what can be
thought in the cosmos in this way. It can be thought: “Let
Mysticism appear in the sign of Idealism! Let it change! Let it
become Empiricism in the sign of Rationalism!” Opposition! The
next move on would represent a false cosmic decision. After
verification, the thought is changed round. The third standpoint must
appear: “Voluntarism in the sign of Dynamism.” These
three decisions, through being spoken over a period in the cosmic
worlds, give the “man Nietzsche”. And he rays back as the
thought of the cosmos.

Thus does the collectivity of the Hierarchies speak in the cosmos!
And our human thinking-activity is a copy, a tiny copy, of it.

Worlds are related to the Spirit or to the Spirits of the cosmos as
our brain is to our soul. Thus we may have a glimpse into something
which we ought certainly to look upon only with a certain reverence,
with a holy awe. For in contemplating it we stand before the
mysteries of human individuality. We learn to understand — if I
may express myself figuratively — that the eyes of the Beings
of the higher Hierarchies roam over the single individualities among
men, and that individuals are to them what the individual letters of
a book are to us when we are reading. This we may look upon only with
holy awe: we are overhearing the thought-activity of the cosmos.

In our day the veil over such a mystery as this must be lifted to a
certain degree; for the laws which have here been shown as the laws
of the thinking of the cosmos are active in man. And the knowledge of
them can help us to understand life, and then to understand
ourselves; so that even when, for one reason or another, we have to
be placed one-sidedly in life, we know that we belong to a great
whole, for we are links in the thought-logic of the cosmos. And in
learning to grasp these relations, Spiritual Science acts as our
guide. It teaches us to understand our one-sided predispositions as
much as it enlarges our all-round knowledge. Thus we can find the
frame of mind which is necessary precisely in our time. For today,
when in many leading minds there is no trace of insight into the
relationships we have touched on here, we experience the effects of
these relations or connections but do not know how to live under
them. And thus they create conditions which call for adjustment.

Let us take the example of Wundt, whom I mentioned yesterday. His
one-sidedness is brought about through a quite definite
constellation. Let us suppose that he could ever struggle on to an
understanding of Spiritual Science, then he would look upon his
one-sidedness in such a way that he would say to himself: “Now
because I stand here with my Empiricism, etc., I am in a position to
do good work in certain fields. I will remain in these, and will make
up for it in other ways through Spiritual Science.” To such a
decision as this he would come. But he refuses to know anything about
Spiritual Science. What does he do in consequence? Whereas he could
carry out something good and productive in the constellation which is
his, he turns what lies within his range into a complete philosophy.
Otherwise he could probably do something greater, much greater;
indeed he would be most useful if he would leave philosophizing alone
and go in for experimental psychology — a thing he understands
— and if he would inquire into the nature of mathematical
conclusions — which he also understands — instead of
making a concoction of all kinds of philosophy; for then he would be
on the right lines.

But this must be said of many. Therefore Spiritual Science, while it
must evoke the feeling by which we recognize how there should be
peace between world-outlooks, must also point sharply to cases where
persons go beyond the necessary limits set for them by their
constellations. These persons do great harm by hypnotizing the world
with opinions that get by without any attention being paid to the
constellation behind them. All forms of one-sidedness that try to
claim universal validity must be strongly repulsed. The world does
not admit of being explained by a person who has special
predilections for this or that. And when he wants to explain it on
his own, and so to found a philosophy, then this philosophy works
harmfully, and Spiritual Science has the task of rejecting the
arrogance of this pretentious claim to universality. In our time, the
less feeling there is for Spiritual Science, the more strongly will
this one-sidedness appear. Hence we see that knowledge of the nature
of human and cosmic thought can lead us to understand rightly the
significance and the task of Spiritual Science, and to see how it can
bring into a right relationship other so-called spiritual streams,
especially philosophic currents, in our time. It must be wished that
knowledge of the kind that we have tried to bring together for
ourselves in these four lectures should inscribe itself deeply into
the hearts and souls of our friends, so that the course of the
anthroposophical spiritual stream through the world would take a
quite definite and right direction. It would thereby be recognized
more and more how a man is formed through that which lives in him as
cosmic thought.

With the aid of such an explanation as this we see more depth that we
could otherwise do in a thought of Fichte's, where he says:
“What kind of a philosophy a man has depends on the kind of man
he is.” Yes, indeed, the kind of philosophy a man has does
verily depend on the kind of man he is! The fact that Fichte (in the
first period of the incarnation he was then living through as Fichte)
could say, as the basic nerve of his philosophy of life: “Our
world is the sensualised material of our duty” [see
footnote 2],
shows even as does the previously quoted saying
(which he gave out later) how his soul changed its constellation in
the spiritual cosmos. That is, it shows how richly this soul was
endowed, so that the spiritual Hierarchies could remould it so that
through it they could think various things for themselves. Something
similar could be said of Nietzsche, for example.

Many different ways of viewing the world emerge if one keeps before
one's soul such things as have been described in these four
lectures. The best we can gain from these descriptions is that with
their aid we should come to look ever more and more deeply, with
perceptive feeling, into the spiritual features of the world.

If only one thing were to be achieved by means of such a
lecture-course as this, it would be that as many as possible of you
should say to yourselves: “Yes, if anyone wants to enter into
the spiritual world — i.e. into the world of truth, and not into the
world of error — he must really set out upon the path! For
much, much must be taken into consideration along this path in order
to come to the sources of truth. And if at the beginning it might
seem to me as if a contradiction appears here or there, if in one
place or another I could not understand something, I will still say
to myself that the world is not there in order to be grasped by every
condition of human understanding, and that I would rather be a seeker
than a man whose sole attitude towards the world is such that he only
inquires ‘What can I understand?’ ‘What can I not
understand?’”

If one becomes a seeker, if one earnestly sets to work along the path
of the seeker, then one learns to know that one must bring together
impulses from the most varied sides in order to gain an understanding
of the world. And then one unlearns every kind of attitude towards
the world that asks “Do I understand that?” “Do I
not understand that?”, and instead one seeks and seeks and goes
on seeking. The worst enemies of truth are cosmic conceptions that
are exclusive and strive after finality; the conceptions of those who
want to frame a couple of thoughts and suppose that with them they
can dare to build up a world-edifice.

The world is boundless, both qualitatively and quantitatively. And it
will be a blessing when there are individual souls who wish for clear
vision with regard to that which is appearing in our day with such
terrible overweening narrow-mindedness, and wants to be “universal”.
I might say: “With bleeding heart I declare that the greatest
hindrance to knowledge of how a preparatory work of thought-activity
is carried out in the brain, how the brain is thereby made into a
mirror and the life of the soul reflected from it — a fact
which could throw endless light on much other physiological knowledge
— the greatest hindrance to the knowledge of this fact is the
crazy modern physiology which speaks of two kinds of nerves, the
‘motor’ and the ‘sensory’ nerves.” (I
have touched on this in many lectures already.) In order to produce
this theory, which crops up everywhere in physiology, it is a fact
that physiology had first to lose all understanding. Hence it is a
theory now recognized all over the earth, and it acts as a hindrance
to all true knowledge of the nature of thought and the nature of the
soul. Never will it be possible to understand human thought if
physiology sets up such an obstacle to true knowledge. But things
have gone so far that an indefensible physiology forms the
introduction to every textbook of psychology and teaching about the
mind, and makes it dependent on this falsity. Therewith the door is
bolted also against knowledge of cosmic thought.

One first learns to recognize what thought is in the cosmos when one
comes to feel what human thinking is: that in its true nature it has
nothing to do with the brain except that it is the master of the
brain. But when one has thus recognized thought in its essence, when
one has come to know oneself in thinking, then one feels oneself
inwardly within the cosmic, and our knowledge of the true nature of
cosmic thought. When we learn to know rightly what our thinking is,
then we learn also to know how we are “thought” by the
Powers of the cosmos. Indeed we may gain a glimpse into the logic of
the Hierarchies. The single components of the decisions of the
Hierarchies, the concepts of the Hierarchies, I have written down for
you. In the twelve spiritual signs of the Zodiac, the seven
world-outlook-moods, and so on, lie the concepts of the Hierarchies;
and human beings are constituted in accordance with the verdicts of
the cosmos which result from these concepts. Thus we feel ourselves
within the logic of the cosmos — that is (if we really grasp
it) within the logic of the Hierarchies of the cosmos. We feel
ourselves as souls embedded in cosmic thought, just as we feel our
thoughts, the little thoughts we think, embedded in our soul-life.

Meditate sometimes on the idea: “I think my thoughts,”
and “I am a thought which is thought by the Hierarchies of the
cosmos.” My eternal part consists in this — that the
thought of the Hierarchies is eternal. And when I have once been
thought out by one category of the Hierarchies, then I am passed on —
as a human thought is passed on from teacher to pupil — from
one category to another, so that this in turn may think me in my
true, eternal nature. Thus I feel myself within the thought-world of
the cosmos.